


Rose by Another Name

by anime_babble



Category: Gundam SEED
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anime_babble/pseuds/anime_babble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the final moments of Phase 7, Cagalli watches Athrun. And angsts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose by Another Name

_The Minerva. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean._

 

After what has surely been one of the most trying days of her political career, Cagalli fumbles ineffectively to salvage the best of the situation. She’s managed to wrangle safe passage for the Minerva to dock in Orb, but hasn’t been able to do anything more. Shinn was right, anti-coordinator sentiments are rising here on earth _(did we learn nothing? Nothing, though we lost so much?)_ She wonders what new horrors lie await for all of them now.

 

Athrun, she thinks. I will find Athrun. They both have much to discuss, his father’s shadow _(and her’s?)_ casting over them once more. Maybe everything will be alright if they can only face it together _(a lie, she knows it’s a lie. Love doesn’t solve everything. She hoped it would, once)._ But they’ve anchored each other through so much, that maybe, just maybe, they can weather this storm too _(Here with you—if only with you—I am safe. I am home)._

When Cagalli finds him, by looking out a window over the deck, she thinks her heart stops for just a second (a lifetime). He is with the ZAFT soldiers, joining in the practice at the shooting range. His shots are perfect, she can tell that even from this distance _(when has he been anything less?)_ , and the others are clearly in awe. The young female red is asking for shooting tips _(Lunamaria? Was that her name?) _They make a pretty tableau down there; a military still life. The seasoned instructor and the new trainees.__

 

This could have been his life. Was very nearly his life. Athrun Zala, shooting star of PLANT, of ZAFT. He was born to great things, to a lofty destiny; a place he gave up _(that she stole? His birthright lost)_. In a way, Athrun belongs here, veins of kinship link him here, she’d be a fool not to realize that. He’s never quite fit in at Orb, she knows that too. There, there is no Athrun Zala. Only Alex Dino, simple bodyguard of the Representative _(Oh sturdy fellow to be sure, but no great assets, no shot at rising to become anything more...where did he come from anyway?)_. She’s held him at gunpoint so many times, but never fired a shot _(what does it matter? She killed him quite effectively all the same)._

 

If he’d stayed, she thinks, he’d be a captain by now, of his own squad or ship. She remembers him on the bridge, giving tactical advice, making strategic decisions. Coming alive in the moment _(Top in his class don’t you know? He could have been great, so great)._ Unlike her, fumbling ever since she started this diplomatic mission, he’s only kept hitting his stride. As if slipping back into a role he’d never quite left behind. Each and every moment has only showcased his talents, highlighted the fact that his potential is so vast. But she’s stuck in the limelight, in a role he is much better suited for, while he’s been relegated to the shadows _(oh, irony of ironies)._

 

No one on the ship has guessed their true relationship, Cagalli is sure of that _(But the chairman perhaps? She doesn’t fully trust those eyes)._ She doesn’t know whether to be amused or to cry. Surrounded by Coordinators, she feels the isolation sharply. It’s little things to be sure, but don’t the little things count? _(More than the big things really…if one thinks about it; the careless slights hurt so much more)_. She is painfully aware of the division between Athrun and herself, something she normally never notices.

 

For all they love each other, so much separates them too.

 

Cagalli remembers thinking that on their first real date _(so banal a thing; a “normal” date, after all they’d been through)_ , feeling so nervous she’d actually worn lipstick and a dress. Her old nurse had thought she was running a fever _(she was in a way, hot and flushed and trembling)._ Us against the world, she’d thought, but not voiced out. Romeo and his Juliet, so terribly romantic. And it is. Till you remember that both Romeo and Juliet wound up dead.

 

Cagalli doesn’t mean to, but the word escapes from her. “Athrun.” Just his name, barely louder than a whisper, surely impossible to hear from this distance _(Love, dear one, my own heart. Stay with me. Now, forever. Stay. Stay. Stay. Please. I love you)._ However impossible it is, he turns at the sound, so attuned to her after all these years, hearing with his heart perhaps, and not his ears.

 

He says something then, to the female red, something she can’t quite hear, as he chooses to leave them and come to her instead _(He’s always chosen her, she knows that; time upon time)._ The glance Cagalli receives from him is so heavy with his love, she almost feels crushed by the sheer physical weight of it _(Here is my heart, for you to cradle or crush, do with it what you will; it is yours, I bequeath it to you)._

Cagalli falls in love with him all over again at that _(when has she not since she met him? Every minute he fills her)._ She feels that her heart ought to be cracked open with these feelings; surely nothing can contain all this. If he ever leaves her, she will break, she knows that much _(Be hollow; empty; nothing)_. She feels old and gnarled with time, she, who was so carefree (careless?) in her youth. He is coming to her now.

If she is forced to, can she let him go?

[End]

**Author's Note:**

> Tried a different sort of style for this fic, but I think it works here. Just an attempt to get inside Cagalli’s head in the first few eps of Destiny; what she felt as the only Natural on the ship, with Shinn being his lovely hostile self. Course this is all before phase 8, otherwise known as the episode that turned my brain into happy goop.
> 
> Me: Now you’ve gotten your fic, you two. So, you can leave me alone now, right?
> 
> Cagalli: Er..don’t think we’re not grateful…but this is angst.
> 
> Me: So?
> 
> Athrun: Well, we were kind of hoping for fluff.
> 
> Me: Fluff? FLUFF???
> 
> Athrun: You know, candlelight dinners, hugs, kisses and—
> 
> Me: No, no, NO! Go away you two! Go bother a real writer, will ya? I’m not going to fic—
> 
> Athrun and Cagalli: *pull out Strike Rouge and Savior*
> 
> Me: *whimpers*


End file.
